Cancer clinics are turning away thousands of Medicare patients. Blame the sequester.

[babylonsister]

Cancer clinics are turning away thousands of Medicare patients. Blame the sequester.

Posted by Sarah Kliff on April 3, 2013 at 5:46 pm


Cancer clinics across the country have begun turning away thousands of Medicare patients, blaming the sequester budget cuts.

Oncologists say the reduced funding, which took effect for Medicare on April 1, makes it impossible to administer expensive chemotherapy drugs while staying afloat financially.

Patients at these clinics would need to seek treatment elsewhere, such as at hospitals that might not have the capacity to accommodate them.

“If we treated the patients receiving the most expensive drugs, we’d be out of business in six months to a year,” said Jeff Vacirca, chief executive of North Shore Hematology Oncology Associates in New York. “The drugs we’re going to lose money on we’re not going to administer right now.”

After an emergency meeting Tuesday, Vacirca’s clinics decided that they would no longer see one-third of their 16,000 Medicare patients.

“A lot of us are in disbelief that this is happening,” he said. “It’s a choice between seeing these patients and staying in business.”

more...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/04/03/cancer-clinics-are-turning-away-thousands-of-medicare-patients-blame-the-sequester/

[hunter]

1. Our health care system is rotten.

People who have money and cancers that are not really treatable get inappropriate medical care and die in very ugly and expensive ways, while people who have cancers that are treatable but have no money die because their cancers are not caught early or they can't afford appropriate treatment.

We desperately need a national health care system that is blind to wealth and gives appropriate and effective medical care to anyone who suffers the misfortune of needing it.

[Auntie Bush]

2. +100

[GeorgeGist]

4. There is no system!

[1-Old-Man]

3. I find this interesting, having just had an $8,000 per month prescription approved

I have cancer and my Oncologist perscribed a new drug for me that I will be taking soon, it appears to cost somewhere between $6,700~8,000 per month. I am on Medicare with backup insurance coming from my old Federal Blue Cross/Blue Shield. These pills are going to cost me $80 for a three month supply. So apparently Medicare isn't completely done with us cancer patients.

[Wednesdays]

5. U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!